World Environment Day

Australia is a nation of cities that bears a special duty to address climate change and the related problem of depleted resources - especially oil and water. The cities need to swiftly and massively reduce their ecological footprints and remove their heels from the throat of nature. The time has run out for technological fixes and market adjustments that will somehow preserve the growth machine economy.

The best science tells us that we have very few years in which to make radical adjustments to our ecological demands if we are to prevent the worst possible effects of climate change and resource depletion. The only path to salvation lies in a swift, centrally coordinated response to a massive threat, including resource rationing and the outlawing of some forms of consumption.

Cities will have to be rationed and learn in time to ration themselves.

Those with the highest consumption have the most to lose.

Power is inevitably at play in situations where a whole social form - a city - is threatened collectively by its own behaviour, but especially by the actions of some. This is why strong, centrally coordinated action is required to ensure both that urban consumption is rapidly reined in, and that this occurs in the fairest and most efficient way possible.

It is time to move beyond the "urban good, suburban bad" (or vice versa) polarity that has created a wounding, enervating gulf in Australia's urban debates. The doorway to sustainability is closing rapidly and the only valid pathway through it, in the time we have left, involves a radical and immediate cut in resource use across the urban spectrum, but most especially by high-consumption groups.

If households consume less, especially wasteful and harmful commodities, then industry and business will have to adjust, hopefully putting more effort into the production of durable, high-quality goods and services.

The "urban-suburban" polarity needs to be replaced by a cohesive view of urban environmental responsibility. We'll require social structures that nurture and maintain social solidarity.

A prescient letter to the editor in The Courier Mail in late 2007 captured the essence of the problem. The letter laments the role of elites in climate debates, including the "knowledgeable" and the "rich and famous", observing their continued ability to "fly their private, corporate or government-funded jets" while the numerous rest "are warned that if the worst does materialise it will be our fault if we do not immediately turn off our air conditioners, use smaller cars, burn less fuel and save all the rainwater we can muster." Moreover, "no rationing is mentioned to bring equitable sharing of the load. So the haves can still outspend the have-nots."

The letter's sentiment anticipates a divisive politics that may well emerge when the broader community begins to comprehend that it is the gilded coin, not the dreadful penny, that most bankrupts our climate.

There is an immediate need to promote, and if necessary prescribe, a culture of moderation amongst elites. This will include restraints on the most conspicuously damaging forms of consumption, including air travel and the import of bulky and weighty luxuries.

We are in a situation of serious ethical and intellectual deprivation at a time of peril. We must rouse ourselves and reawaken our most basic human obligations - to each other, to those to come, and to the ecology that will nurture - or at least endure - us all.

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